June 14th.
One year ago, I fasted before going to sleep. One year ago, I got up early in the morning and, with a ridiculous number of my family, drove down to the hospital. One year ago, I had so many tests I would need to look them up to remember.
I fell asleep during the Doppler before my surgery, but they kept me awake during my surgery. At one point, my doctor asked me, What is your latex allergy? and I just stared back, confused. What is your reaction? he demanded.
A rash, I told him, and he proceeded with whatever it was he was doing, satisfied. I could hear my words echo through the room on the lips below the paper masks.
I had been told before that the hole in my heart was 10mm, a grade five (very large) patent foramen ovale. It was diagnosed less than six weeks ago by a pioneer neurologist looking for the cause of my migraines, tremors, and seizure disorder. I looked his name up in the Yellow Pages after my psychiatrist had put me on anxiety medication, the sixth daily prescription, which only made the tremors worse. They were so bad that my boss drove my home from work after I sat in stunned silence at my inability to type.
Celexa, Cymbalta, Depakote, Effexor, Geodon, Klonopin, Neurontin, Risperdal, Seroquel, Synthroid, Wellbutrinall given to me to make me betterall made me worse.
There arent nerves on the inside of the blood vessels or heart like there are on the top of the skin, and so if I broke out in a rash from the balloon they used to measure the hole in my heart, I didnt feel it. My doctor leaned in and told me that the hole was 14mm.
I had four nurses who brought me back to my room. They refused to sing Eye of the Tiger with me, and they were annoyed with how I refused to keep my arms still. I needed to celebrate my victory.
I confessed to my mother, in my morphine-induced haze (as I later learned), that I had taken special care to clean my apartment because I didnt want to worry her, were I unable to return and clean it myself.
Yesterday, I told myself that I had to make it through to today. Just so I could make it a year. I no longer have health insurance. My cognitive capacity continues to decline. I cannot hold a job. I cannot keep friends.
I resent the world not for what its done to me but for what I cannot give back.
It has been a year and all I know is that I am not strong enough to overcome a missing 14mm piece of flesh.
One year ago, I fasted before going to sleep. One year ago, I got up early in the morning and, with a ridiculous number of my family, drove down to the hospital. One year ago, I had so many tests I would need to look them up to remember.
I fell asleep during the Doppler before my surgery, but they kept me awake during my surgery. At one point, my doctor asked me, What is your latex allergy? and I just stared back, confused. What is your reaction? he demanded.
A rash, I told him, and he proceeded with whatever it was he was doing, satisfied. I could hear my words echo through the room on the lips below the paper masks.
I had been told before that the hole in my heart was 10mm, a grade five (very large) patent foramen ovale. It was diagnosed less than six weeks ago by a pioneer neurologist looking for the cause of my migraines, tremors, and seizure disorder. I looked his name up in the Yellow Pages after my psychiatrist had put me on anxiety medication, the sixth daily prescription, which only made the tremors worse. They were so bad that my boss drove my home from work after I sat in stunned silence at my inability to type.
Celexa, Cymbalta, Depakote, Effexor, Geodon, Klonopin, Neurontin, Risperdal, Seroquel, Synthroid, Wellbutrinall given to me to make me betterall made me worse.
There arent nerves on the inside of the blood vessels or heart like there are on the top of the skin, and so if I broke out in a rash from the balloon they used to measure the hole in my heart, I didnt feel it. My doctor leaned in and told me that the hole was 14mm.
I had four nurses who brought me back to my room. They refused to sing Eye of the Tiger with me, and they were annoyed with how I refused to keep my arms still. I needed to celebrate my victory.
I confessed to my mother, in my morphine-induced haze (as I later learned), that I had taken special care to clean my apartment because I didnt want to worry her, were I unable to return and clean it myself.
Yesterday, I told myself that I had to make it through to today. Just so I could make it a year. I no longer have health insurance. My cognitive capacity continues to decline. I cannot hold a job. I cannot keep friends.
I resent the world not for what its done to me but for what I cannot give back.
It has been a year and all I know is that I am not strong enough to overcome a missing 14mm piece of flesh.
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
you said that you can't keep friends, but i can't believe that's true...not if you treat all of your friends with the kindness and compassion that you've shown me since i met you on here. like Edrok said up there *points*, i want to be the best friend that i can be to you, and so i'm stepping up as someone else who you can talk to if you want to. i might not know exactly what you're going through, but i guess i can at least empathise on some level.
you and i have very different medical conditions, but the experiences we have been forced to endure by our psychiatrists is very much the same. indeed, i was prescribed some of those same substances that you were given for your anxiety, and just like you, they made my problem even worse. i'm ashamed to say that i wasn't as strong as you, and i caved to the effects of my meds...i gave up caring about anything and tried to put an end to it all. it didn't work, and so here i am today. it's sickeningly ironic that something that's given to you to make you better can make things so much worse, especially when an incompetent misdiagnosis is the sole reason you were given them in the first place. technically, i'm still supposed to take that medication, but i haven't taken any of it (except the stuff to thin my blood) for about two years now, and i can honestly say that i feel all the more better for it.
anyways, this wasn't supposed to be about me. all i'm trying to say is that i guess on at least some level, i can understand some of the things you've faced, although i don't even pretend to understand everything you've been through and are still going though, and if you ever want to talk about anything, you can write to me either through here or through e-mail (AndNowTheActionIsOnFire@hotmail.com) whenever you like. i'll always listen to/read everything you have to say, and even though i may not always be able to help, i promise i'll always do my best to understand. we may not have known each other all that long, but i care about you hun...*hugs* you're an amazing person...don't ever think any different.
xoxoxox